"Living With Autism II: Perpectives" for Forbes

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Alice G. Walton of Forbes magazine reached out to John Robison, Ari Ne'Eman, myself, and several others for a piece about autistic adults.

"In this piece, John Scott Holman, Ari Ne’Eman, Bridget Allen, Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg, John Elder Robison, and Kassiane Sibley share their thoughts on how autistic adults and children make their ways in the world of neurotypical people, in education, work, and life. There are a lot of viewpoints included here, but a common thread might be that, beyond the issue of human rights alone, a different attitude towards autism might have economic, educational, and societal consequences that would affect a great many people – autistic and neurotypical alike. Of course, how to get there is up for grabs."

Read the rest here...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalto ... spectives/

Good article, thanks for linking it.

Congratulations on getting profiled in the article, you have clearly hit the ground running, good for you!

I especially liked what John Robinson had to say about how society used to accommodate people on the spectrum.....I hope the "Captains of Industry" this and reconsider how they hire people.

wow,congrats

Congratulations!

I've liked it on my Facebook page.

I thought everyone had some great things to say. I especially liked John's comments. Very thought provoking.

congrats. its great to feel represented in a news service that people actually read.

The people upfront leading the movement are the ones who need as little help as possible. They are young, bright, and appear to be visibly healthy so society isn't going to break their neck to offer them adequate assistance and accommodations. These Autistics Adults might get 'the opportunities' that they desire BUT what about the huge population of Autistics that are NOT as 'high functioning' as those that represent them and having opportunities are just not enough to help them. What are these Autistic Adults going to do IF allocated resources are determined by the functionality of Aspergers Autistics or HFA's ?

This is a problem. Do NOT tell ME THAT you speak FOR AUTISTICS and in the same breath denigrate the suffering of young children as an advertisement ploy WHEN you have Austistic Adults suffering the same FATE yet remain suspiciously invisible in the movement.

IF you're going to speak than speak. IF you're going to show Than show ALL of US.

Than, I listen.

TheSunAlsoRises

Edited to say: My post is not directed towards you TambourineMan.

The Talented Tenth W. E. B DuBois

HomeWork: Read Information concerning the Talented Tenth and the conclusions W. E. B DuBois reached.


TheSunAlsoRises

It seems fitting that Forbes, which represents the greedy and selfish Wall Street kinds of individuals, does an article favorable to some greedy and self-serving cognitive elite autistics. It kinda emphasizes the true colors of the anti-cure movement.

Huh. I have interacted with Ari Ne'eman and Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg and they just seem to be people to me. Don't strike me as greedy and selfish. Actually, both work pretty hard at this stuff. I don't agree with both of them on everything, but you know.

I have a lot of disagreements with John Elder Robison - for example, his argument in a recent interview that there aren't enough autistic people for us to request and receive accommodations is BS, and his comparisons are not useful. I also do not know him

I know of Tambourine-Man from here and an ADD-related forum, and he's pretty decent - I wouldn't call him selfish and greedy either. Maybe a shameless self-promoter but that would be a joke, because I do respect his efforts and there's no shame in him putting himself forward and doing all these things.

But I am not interested in a cure which is seriously unlikely to be possible ever as opposed to providing services for autistic adults who are alive today and are mostly abandoned by the system by age 22.

I really dislike suggestions that apparent severity or lack of severity serves as evidence as to whether someone should be allowed to speak or not. It likely is that these people have an easier time having their voices heard than people who are more severe, but even when severely autistic people get to speak or receive a degree of limelight or fame, they're accused of being too mild to be able to speak as an autistic person or for autistic people, even when they do not claim to speak for anyone but themselves.

It's good that the Wall Street elite are being made *aware* that autism exists, and that autistic individuals can not only function, but succeed and prosper as long as we aren't forcibly rammed into the "one-size-fits-nobody" culture that has increasingly pervaded corporate America over the past 50 years.

The sad fact is, in modern America, Tesla and Einstein would have been permanently unemployed.

Hmm, Robison's comments in this are a contrast to what he said before. I wonder if the responses to the previous comment had an impact, then. My brain rebels at the idea that everyone worked 100 years ago, and I think I want to fact check that. The truth is that a lot of people - including many autistic people at all functioning levels - were basically automatically institutionalized for not being able to function like other people. At the time, labels were like moron, idiot, etc, and not "autistic" which came decades later, but the people diagnosed with autism now weren't invisible to the system prior to Kanner and Asperger.

Those with such high aptitude don't have to work as hard, and I wonder what Ne'eman has accomplished. I think Robison has at least some potential for compassion although he's likely being misled. I don't know what to make of Tambourine-Man. I'm not just complaining of them in particular. I'm considering all of the high-functioners of their opinion. If they're not greedy, why won't they agree to share their aptitude with others on the spectrum?


I think it's sadly ironic that those who claim that cure is unlikely to be possible, are the ones advocating for the interests of those with very high-aptitude who boast of their "gifts". Since all of this intellectual capacity is out there, it shouldn't be considered impossible to acquire the knowledge and techniques to cure neurological problems. Like, to allocate such capacity to human needs instead of to personal benefit, and even prevent such capacity from being wasted on nothing.


Severity disparities aren't just apparent. They're real. This isn't about being allowed to speak. The ones speaking now have the resources to speak. This concerns who has the power to make the rules.

How can the highly impaired ones on the spectrum succeed and prosper? The identity/diversity politics perspective can't deal with that question. Your basis for not liking corporate America doesn't seem lofty or meaningful. I don't know if you really disagree with it's real effects.

Share their aptitude? What does "share their aptitude" mean? I don't understand what you're saying.

And yes, some don't work as hard as others. Okay? Does this make them less worthy of being heard?

Ne'eman's been involved in disability activism for several years now. Ne'eman has at the very least accomplished the establishment of ASAN as a voice for autistic activism that does not focus on parents and professionals.



What on Earth are you talking about?

I don't think a cure is likely because I have read literature on neurology and I understand that autism is a developmental disorder, in that it is the way the brain develops over time. How do you cure/repair something that is functioning as designed? How do you renovate a brain so it works like a neurotypical brain? How many resources are diverted to going down this rabbit hole while more and more autistic people of all functioning levels reach adulthood and lose access to services?



I didn't say severity isn't real, I used the phrase "apparent severity" because I am not talking about actual severity that people may experience but what people like you assume to be actual severity. You're assuming that everyone in that article is mild and capable of all kinds of cognitive feats apparently, and I do not think that is true.

The other reason I said it that way is because what often happens to autistic people of any severity who speak up - who blog or make videos or write on forums or get involved anywhere it's possible to communicate, in environments that minimize our communication difficulties - are often told they can't really be as severe as they really are, that they must be mildly impaired at best. That they're not autistic enough to speak up, and that they're taking attention or resources away from those who are really, genuinely, severely autistic. Actual severity doesn't really matter, as the criticism relies on the assumption that truly severe autism means complete inability to communicate or comprehend the existence of other people, which I do not think is actually true.

And that apparent severity does not always reflect actual challenges a given person may face. You can describe someone as mild because they can speak, because they've written a book, because they have above average intellect, but you really can't make that determination from just a few traits or historical facts about a person.

I have had people tell me that I am mild and I have had my therapist suggest to me that I should look into seeing if I can get someone to help me with activities of daily living because my attempts at living on my own (even with roommates) have been fairly disastrous. Which is correct? Well, I'm going to go with the person who has fairly extensive knowledge of what my daily life is like versus what someone assumes because I am skilled at writing.



How many of the so-called "high aptitude" autistic people are succeeding and prospering? I can name a few offhand, compared to the 90% or so who are unemployed, underemployed, unable to work, unable to function in many different contexts. Most of us are in bad shape.

I've been calling myself a shameless self-promoter since I was 13 years-old.